]]>http://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/10/10/terms-and-conditions-citi-x-girls-in-tech-data-hack/feed/0Mom Can Code, I can too! (3rd Edition)http://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/05/27/mom-can-code-i-can-too-3rd-edition/
http://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/05/27/mom-can-code-i-can-too-3rd-edition/#respondSun, 27 May 2018 10:47:56 +0000http://singapore.girlsintech.org/?p=1925By Geraldine Ho Back by popular demand, Girls In Tech Singapore (GITSG) presented its third edition of Mom Can Code, I Can Too! – an annual coding event to commemorate Mother’s...

Back by popular demand, Girls In Tech Singapore (GITSG) presented its third edition of Mom Can Code, I Can Too! – an annual coding event to commemorate Mother’s Day.

This afternoon of mother-daughter bonding through simple coding and music making was conducted at PIXEL LAB in Tampines Regional Library last Saturday (19 May) – each mum and kid pair built their own e-ukelele to take home!

IMDA’s Digital Maker Programme aims to nurture a new generation of digital natives, who are passionate about creating with technology. The partnership with GITSG is a step towards this, encouraging girls and their moms to discover STEM together.

Designed as an introductory workshop for those who are unacquainted with coding, the e-Ukulele workshop welcomed a group of 20 mom-kid pairs, ready to get their code on. Some were new to coding, while others attended last year’s event and returned for more.

While you might expect a mother to bring her young daughter to a Mother’s Day event like this, it turns out that daughters were actually bringing their mothers! They came with a keen interest in tech and coding, eager to explore and learn more. It’s encouraging to see these young girls getting excited about coding, with the youngest being only 7 years-old. Mom Can Code, I Can Too! also attracted a handful of teenage girls, and a mother-son team joined in the fun too!

The participants first built their ukuleles, using simple wooden parts. A bit of fixing here, a bit more fiddling there and – voila! – a ukelele took shape.

But what makes the ukulele electronic is the micro:bit, which needs to be attached to the instrument with magnets and conductive threads.

The micro:bit is how the hardware is coded, to determine how the instrument sounds. Enter Microsoft Block Editor, a drag and drop code editor that allows you to snap together blocks of code – a great beginner’s tool to learn the concepts of coding.

Mothers patiently guided their daughters; each pair’s problem-solving skills put to the test as they tried to solve some technical issues with the micro:bit. It was a lesson in patience, perseverance, and not being afraid to try, fail, and troubleshoot! Despite the challenges, many girls were unfazed and enjoyed the process. Their enthusiasm for coding was simply unstoppable!

At the end of the day, each pair had their e-ukelele as a momento and tool to further their coding journey. It truly was a pleasure for us at GITSG to see our young ones become passionate about coding, and 10 year old participant Amelia gave us a glowing review of “Two thumbs up!”

We can’t wait to see what these budding coders will come up with in future

GITSG thanks IMDA for their kind support and Ripplecreate for facilitating the workshop.

About our community writer:

Geraldine is an assistant brand manager at the Gryphon Tea Company, and has built her career in lean marketing for SMEs. Her passion is in learning how people tick, and telling their stories to inspire readers.

“I always believed that one woman’s success can only help another woman’s success.”

– Gloria Vanderbilt

A recent survey by the non-profit organisation Catalyst tracked the professional success of 4,000 MBA alumni from prestigious business schools worldwide over the course of two years. Catalyst found that:

“Women with a mentor increased their odds of being promoted to mid-manager or above by 56% over women without a mentor while 65% of women in mentoring relationships earned promotions overall

Women who had active mentors achieved 27% higher salary growth than women without a mentor.”

Are you:

An experienced, senior female or male leader, with around 10 years or more experience in a leadership position

OR a highly motivated and talented, early career female with a minimum ofsix year’s full-time work experience.

Join us for our inaugural mentorship programme for young businesswomen who work in STEM, run in association with Protégé.

Special thanks to our sponsors and partners who have made this possible

Platinum Sponsor:

Powered by:

]]>http://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/03/29/gitsgmentorship18/feed/0Driving You with Data – Samantha Pearlson and Nugithttp://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/03/11/driving-you-with-data-samantha-pearlson-nugit/
http://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/03/11/driving-you-with-data-samantha-pearlson-nugit/#respondSun, 11 Mar 2018 17:11:51 +0000http://singapore.girlsintech.org/?p=1842 By Shweta Agarwala We’re only one week away from our first workshop series for the year, where we’ll be exploring the A in our ABC of Digital...

We’re only one week away from our first workshop series for the year, where we’ll be exploring the A in our ABC of Digital Talent initiative – Artificial Intelligence (AI)! Our community writer Shweta interviews AI leader Samantha Pearlson on her journey into Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often portrayed darkly, in a future controlled by cyborgs and machines. If you let the dust settle on the Hollywood inspired scenes though, you will realize its potential. The marriage of AI with data analytics is having a great impact, improving business processes and accelerating their value. This convergence is an important development, shaping the future of how firms process big data in a meaningful way.

Samantha Pearlson, VP of Operations at Nugit, is at the center of it all. Nugit was founded in 2013, sensing a frustration in the limitations of dashboards and identified the opportunity for analytics to be friendlier and scalable across organisations of all sizes. Dubbed The Data Storytelling Platform, it offers unique solutions and value for organisations through a combination of AI, data science, scalable engineering and visual design.

Making the right moves with technology

Technology-driven businesses need not be unfathomable, in fact they should be simple to comprehend. Samantha describes how data and AI can play a bigger role for businesses through her vision for Nugit: “It’s to deliver high-impact stories to our customers about their data, so they can take ownership and control of outcomes.

Our customers should be our biggest advocates, for the value they get from the platform: which provides data visualisations, AI powered analytics, natural language generation, and data storytelling tools, to support them in being successful within their organisations.”

Samantha has a background in digital advertising, so she’s familiar with how technology can be a game-changer for companies. “Digital advertising is rooted in technology, and itself has borne many new startups. I have partnered with many interesting startups at various stages in my career.

In my previous role as head of the digital marketing division of an advertising agency, I was always looking at ways of incorporating technology to drive efficiencies and help support my teams. I worked with a Swedish tech startup to improve our media planning process – we trialled a number of workflow management solutions, all of which were from startups, and we were also a Nugit customer.

I have many brave and incredibly smart friends who have left the corporate world to either found or join a startup, and I have always been interested in their journey.”

From customer to advocate

After her first experience with Nugit, she went on to become their client service director, before taking on the VP of Operations role in December last year. When starting out she worked with a team of 8 customer service (CS) professionals, and hit the ground running with some new initiatives:

“(These) initiatives sped up the time that it takes for all new customers to get value from the platform, improved our alignment of outcomes to our existing’ business goals/objectives, improved integration with our Sales team to ensure customer expectations are being met, and provided clarity to the CS team on their individual and group delivery requirements.”

Samantha’s work is hardly one-sided, as her day shows:

“On a daily basis I am talking to our customers, using the Nugit platform to create stories for our customers, working with the CS team to ensure that we are always learning and growing, and aligning with other departments in the business to ensure nothing is operating in silo.

Second to my work with the CS and operations teams, I probably interact the most with our CEO Dave Sanderson. He is a great sounding board and always offers up interesting approaches to a wide variety of scenarios.”

New ways of working for real change

All that communication is key to fulfilling the vision of client services but there are still challenges, as Samantha elaborates: “From a professional perspective, adoption of any new technology can be a challenge. Change management is not always easy.

For example; despite having senior stakeholder backing, I have found that often the people who will use our platform on a daily basis are so accustomed to doing things in their older, more manual, ways that they can be reluctant to change – even though the change will help them.”

She takes it in her stride though, and ensures the change is beneficial – as she puts it: “Nugit empowers our customers to move away from the traditional ways of working – data silos, manual and low level grunt work – so teams can focus on high value activities like strategy and execution. My vision is facilitating this shift while creating advocates along the way.”

She’s seen positive change in herself too: “Something has happened a few times in conversations I’ve had since I joined Nugit, I have found myself getting animated with excitement about the product. That energy has even made the people I was talking with, comment about how content and enthusiastic I appear.

These moments leave me feeling satisfied that I am in the right place, working with the right people, on a product that I feel passionate about.”

Let’s make AI diverse

Although many feel AI has just started, it already suffers from lopsided effects when it comes to gender diversity. Margaret Mitchell, a Microsoft researcher, jokingly describes AI as a “sea of dudes”.

Samantha had this to say when we asked for her thoughts on diversity in AI:

“Fei-Fei Li, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and Director of Stanford University’s AI Lab, put this very well in a Wired article from April 2017: ‘AI is about to make the biggest changes to humanity, and we’re missing a whole generation of diverse technologists and leaders.’

Now is the time for us to get more women at the table, because if we don’t have the right representation, the technology is inevitably going to pick up gender biases, and will not represent us all.”

She definitely thinks that AI can be made more accessible to girls and women, saying: “Role models matter! We need to hold up images of women, of all different phenotypes of women in tech, for women and girls to relate to.

If girls can identify with someone that is more like them, they will be more empowered, feel included, and will go for it. A girl who sees rows and rows of men in a coding camp will be much less likely to feel like this is a field that is accessible to them.”

Samantha has one key piece of advice for girls looking to explore AI and STEM careers:

“Mentorship is very important. A mentor is a wealth of knowledge that can be tapped into, they give you a different perspective and ask questions that help you find the answers where you may not have looked before. A good mentor will help you to learn from their experience, and help you to avoid making the same mistakes while on your journey.

Purposefully seek out mentors who have succeeded despite the odds, and who will take you under their wing and mentor you.”

Keep up with Samantha and Nugit, as they move organisations from dashboards to Data Storytelling, by following them on Twitter. Meet tech and legal leaders like Samantha at our next networking event on 23rd March: GITSG @ Visa: Tech X Legal! Get your tickets here: https://www.eventnook.com/event/gitsgvisatechxlegal/home

About our community writer

Shweta is a passionate scientist with a PhD in electronics engineering and a background in 3D printing. She is involved in multidisciplinary research to try and solve real-life problems, and is an advocate for gender diversity – she hopes to change stereotypes for women in STEM.

Girls in Tech Singapore are following on from our amazingly received event with Amazon Web Services by launching The ABC of Digital Talent: Workshop Series. Our partnership means that the GITSG community will now be powered by AWS Educate!

What is AWS Educate?AWS Educate is Amazon’s global initiative for students and educators to accelerate cloud-related learning endeavours.

What is it for? We want to empower our members to educate themselves with ABC skills and engage tech as Digital Talent. A is for AI (artificial intelligence), B is for Big Data and C is for Cloud Computing – AWS Educate will help you explore these new skills and embark on your very own journey to a cloud career!

What do I need? We’re glad you asked! Here’s a step-by-step guide on getting access to the AWS Educate platform – only for members of Girls in Tech Singapore.

What should I do first when I get my AWS Educate access?

Get hands-on classroom experience with an expert instructor and friends around you from the community – you’ll get 6 days over 3 months to learn together: with the tools, labs and content you now have!

Practice and build with your new ABC skills: how about an app, a chatbot, or a tool just to make daily life simpler for you?

We believe in rewarding your commitment to educate and empower yourself – so all members who complete the workshop series will receive a full refund.

So – what are you waiting for? Sign up now and accelerate your learning with us!

About our community writer

Tasha is Editor in Chief of the Girls in Tech Singapore blog and an advisory board member. She is an advocate for tech and talent, and manages the International Graduate Program for Telstra – a major technology company that believes in a better connected future for everyone.

Last Saturday Girls in Tech Singapore (GITSG) and Lockheed Martin collaborated to present Ready to Launch, an event focused on the aerospace and aviation industry at the Singapore Youth Flying Club (SYFC). It was also the kickoff to a year-long partnership aimed at driving the conversation around the importance of STEM education.

Aerospace and aviation continue to be a male-dominated industry, and the partnership aims to spark serious interest in the pursuit of STEM education and careers by more female students.

GITSG x Lockheed Martin – Ready to Launch was held ahead of the Singapore Airshow, currently taking place at the Changi Exhibition Centre this weekend. All the attendees were entered into a lucky draw, with 5 pairs of tickets to the show up for grabs! Our girls showed up bright and early at the Singapore Youth Flying Club (SYFC), all smiles and eager to get going.

Our day started with an introduction to Lockheed Martin and the amazing things they are contributing to the world of aviation, defense, energy and space! David Jensen, Regional Executive of Lockheed Martin, spoke about their focus on developing the next generation of STEM talent and aim to significantly increase the number of females in the industry over the next decade.

Lockheed Martin built the F-35 fighter jet, which will be showcased for the first time in Southeast Asia at the Singapore Air Show, courtesy of the United States Marine Corps.

Lockheed Martin sponsored models of the F-35 for each guest, and our girls managed to assemble them in just a few minutes!

GITSG board member Robyn Lee then shared an overview of what Girls in Tech does; taking the audience through a journey from our roots in San Francisco, to how we’re living the mission of educating, empowering and engaging girls and women to learn and work in STEM here in Singapore.

Robyn happens to be a former student of the Singapore Youth Flying Club (SYFC) herself, and introduced David Su and Vincent Ko from the Singapore Youth Flying Club. Vincent, who is the SYFC recruitment officer, spoke about the exciting programmes they have to train and develop young pilots. The club was started in 1971 when a fleet of 8 Cessna 172s were handed down from the air force.

Did you know that it only costs SGD $28 for a Singaporean youth to qualify for the programme? Anyone can apply if they meet the minimum requirements!

Our third speaker was Marine Benoit, Vice President of Marketing at Aviation Capital Group – who shared her experiences in aviation; first as a student of aeronautical engineering, then a qualified engineer who helped make decisions on where and how to make flight routes, and now in sales and marketing for commercial jet aircraft! Aviation Capital Group is a major leasing firm serving clients such as Tiger Airways and Jetstar around the world.

Marine also shared how she got to where she is and gave our girls some heartfelt advice: to keep doing what you’re passionate about! It was a fascinating story of a woman thriving in commercial aviation, and many in the audience were absolutely enthralled.

After a short break our speakers took to the stage again for a panel session, answering questions about working in aviation and the aerospace industry. Up next was our lucky draw – with five winners getting a pair of tickets each for the highly anticipated Singapore Airshow!

Anya, one of our winners, said she was happy to be there and learnt a good deal from the session. Her mother added that she would have loved to join if programmes like this were available back in her day!

Congratulations to our lucky draw winners! Hope you all enjoy the Singapore Airshow!

The day ended with a tour of the SYFC hangar and of course, we couldn’t pass up the chance to take more photos!

Thank you to Lockheed Martin, Singapore Youth Flying Club, all our speakers and our girls plus their parents for a wonderful morning spent learning and sharing!

About our community writer

Lynette is a marketing professional in tech who’s an avid baker and loves karaoke. This is her first post for Girls in Tech Singapore.

]]>http://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/02/10/gitsg-x-lockheed-martin-ready-to-launch/feed/0Girls in Tech Singapore X Amazon Web Services: The ABC of Digital Talenthttp://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/01/30/girls-in-tech-singapore-x-amazon-web-services-the-abc-of-digital-talent/
http://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/01/30/girls-in-tech-singapore-x-amazon-web-services-the-abc-of-digital-talent/#respondTue, 30 Jan 2018 13:53:32 +0000http://singapore.girlsintech.org/?p=1691 By Huifen Zheng and Geraldine Ho Girls In Tech Singapore (GITSG) kicked off 2018 with a bang last week. Our first event of the year The ABC of Digital...

Guests were greeted with a lovely spread for dinner at venue sponsor AWS’ offices; a welcome recharge after a long day, as we looked forward to an exciting evening. The guests were already abuzz – mingling and discussing the ABCs: artificial intelligence (AI), big data and cloud literacy.

Girls in Tech Singapore Advisory Board Member Robyn Lee launched the session, announcing that this event marked the beginning of GITSG’s collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS Education Programme Director Ng Puay San then gave us an introduction to AWS Educate, a global initiative that champions cloud literacy and provides resources to accelerate cloud-related learning.

This initiative came about as a result of the growing demand for cloud-literate digital talent, with a program based on career pathways; users first choose a pathway before embarking on projects to pick up relevant skills. This is indeed a practical learning approach, especially when digital talent have to navigate a complex web of subjects in the ever-changing digital space. AWS Educate also prides itself as a holistic solution, with a job portal for digital talent.

As part of the collaboration, GITSG guests were treated to a sweet surprise – $100 worth of learning credit on AWS Educate – an excellent virtual goody bag to kickstart the year!

LinkedIn’s Ara Cho kept the momentum going by presenting fresh and dynamic insights on how the professional network’s data can be used to capture what’s happening in the digital space. She identified three high-level trends:

1) There is a growing demand for digital talent in hybrid roles2) The top three industries for digital are Agriculture, Transportation & Logistics3) Skills and knowledge in the domain of ABC – artificial intelligence (AI), big data and cloud literacy – are now highly sought after in the job market.

Dave started by sharing that Telstra – originally a telecommunications service provider – has gone through disruption in its industry, and is now progressively moving towards being a technology company. This means that Telstra and companies like them recognise the need to be innovative and embrace new trends – and therefore need people skilled in artificial intelligence, big data and cloud services to boost their service portfolios.

Ara also shared an encouraging personal experience: she was formerly a journalist before taking up her data analytics role at LinkedIn. The last time that she had taken any mathematics classes was in high school – however, she was able to pick up big data skills along the way: “If I can do it, you can do it!”

Adrian described his role at IMDA – to encourage and develop Singapore’s people with technology and digital skills. Adrian noted that the speed of technological development is usually faster than adoption by the general population: “Tech is revolutionary, humans are evolutionary.”

Our panel moderator Chandini Manoharan (International Graduate – Telstra) then asked the group what employers can do to retain their existing ABC talent. Both Ara and AWS HR leader Elizabeth noted the importance of providing employees with opportunities to grow. Elizabeth shared that a good career development strategy for employees allows AWS to maintain an employee churn rate of single digit percentage.

The panel were then asked to highlight character traits of people who would make good digital talent: Adrian thought that the exposure to digital skills should start young – in schools, where teachers and parents need to focus on children acquiring skills and not merely getting straight As. He shared an anecdote that Jack Ma (founder of Alibaba) told his children that it is not necessary to have the best grades; it is good enough to be in the middle of the class so long as the students learn various skills.

Dave noted that, as a hiring manager, it is important to develop the right attitude and mindset. Once candidates qualify with a basic set of skills, he looks for those with a growth mindset – ready to challenge the status quo and keep up with a fast- growing industry.

Elizabeth and Ara concluded the panel by encouraging women to step up and apply for roles which they may not feel fully qualified for. Ara referenced a Harvard Business Review (HBR) report with a powerful statistic: women tend to apply only for roles when they were fully sure that they met all the criteria, while men were comfortable applying to roles even where they met only some of the criteria.

Dave shared his thoughts post-event: “The skills and perspectives women bring to the industry will be critical in driving the next technological leap forward. I’m encouraged by the great turnout, and having diverse teams is very important to delivering better products and services – especially as AI and big data become more humanist. I’m even more committed to making tech less intimidating for anyone looking to make this their career.”

“It was a truly inspiring session – the panelists gave us a glimpse into the digital world and how we can prepare ourselves for it,” our moderator Chandini commented. “One thing’s for sure: we are heading towards a very exciting future with digital at the forefront of business. So let’s prepare ourselves and embrace the change!”

Look out for our next newsletter – we’ll share a step-by-step guide on how to use your promo code for AWS Educate credit when you sign up with Girls in Tech Singapore. Join our community and get our newsletter plus latest event updates here.

About our community writers

Huifen is a technology lawyer who has worked in financial services, telecommunications and R&D. She is deeply interested in the intersection of law and technology, and wrote her masters’ thesis on the topic of data privacy and the Internet of Things (IOT).

Geraldine is an assistant brand manager at the Gryphon Tea Company, and has built her career in lean marketing for SMEs. Her passion is in learning how people tick, and telling their stories to inspire readers.

]]>http://singapore.girlsintech.org/2018/01/30/girls-in-tech-singapore-x-amazon-web-services-the-abc-of-digital-talent/feed/0FirstCOUNSEL – Connecting startups and lawyers through legaltech and the gig economyhttp://singapore.girlsintech.org/2017/11/24/firstcounsel-connecting-startups-and-lawyers-through-legaltech-and-the-gig-economy/
http://singapore.girlsintech.org/2017/11/24/firstcounsel-connecting-startups-and-lawyers-through-legaltech-and-the-gig-economy/#respondFri, 24 Nov 2017 15:57:32 +0000http://singapore.girlsintech.org/?p=1543By Huifen Zheng In this new digital age, all industries are up for disruption, and the legal industry is no different. Girls in Tech Singapore interviewed Linda Schindler, COO...

In this new digital age, all industries are up for disruption, and the legal industry is no different. Girls in Tech Singapore interviewed Linda Schindler, COO of FirstCOUNSEL, and found out more about her journey: from being a lawyer in the Silicon Valley, to running a legaltech startup in Singapore.

Traditionally, law firms have been billing their clients by the hour, and legal services have generally been considered to be expensive for startups and small businesses. All this is set to change as the legal industry innovates solutions to better serve the new wave of clients: startups, SMEs and gig economy professionals.

Legaltech refers to the use of software and digital services to improve the way that legal services are provided to clients. This is a growing market globally, with the United States as the leading market for many new legaltech startups.
One such legaltech business was recently launched in Singapore – FirstCOUNSEL. Founded by experienced corporate lawyer Azmul Haque, FirstCOUNSEL was set up to provide on-demand legal support at affordable fees for startups and small business.

Girls in Tech Singapore (GITSG) spoke to Linda Schindler, the chief operating officer of FirstCOUNSEL, to find out more about her journey, as well as get her take on how startups can optimise with the right fit for legal help.

GITSG: Hi Linda, thanks for speaking with Girls in Tech. Could you tell us a bit about yourself?Linda: I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, so very early on I could already see first hand the trials and tribulations of running your own business. Later on, I went to law school in California and subsequently qualified as a lawyer with the California Bar.
Over the course of my career as a lawyer for entrepreneurs and SMEs, it was apparent that sound legal advice is crucial to sustainable business growth. When any business expands, they are very likely to encounter legal issues or need guidance on how to structure their companies or contracts in a way that protects their legal rights. However, many small businesses cannot afford to engage law firms, which tend to be expensive with potentially unpredictable fees.

GITSG: What do you see as a common theme or trend with small businesses and startups when it comes to legal needs and support?Linda: Entrepreneurs end up searching the internet for templates and patching together contracts which do not work for their specific situation. If they are lucky enough to have friends who are lawyers, they may ask these friends for some ad-hoc advice. But the friend may not be a specialist in that particular area, and thus the issue is not resolved.
Through my experiences I can see there is a real market for a different way of providing practical, on-demand legal support and usable templates for small businesses, while still being cost-efficient.

GITSG: Is that why you joined FirstCOUNSEL?Linda: Yes, I joined FirstCOUNSEL because I believe entrepreneurs and SMEs are underserved and we need to help them access affordable legal support.
FirstCOUNSEL is a legaltech startup whose mission is to transform the way legal support is delivered to the early-stage economy – empowering them to start, run and scale their business successfully.

GITSG: How is this mission accomplished?Linda: Our platform uses a combination of contract automation and omni-channel support. We enable our customers to have access to basic business legal support, including company incorporation, customizable legal templates, and connect them with a curated group of specialist lawyers who work gig-economy style. Users can engage their own in-house counsel on-demand — for 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week and beyond.
The use of technology and online solutions means that overheads are kept lower, and the cost savings are passed on to our users.

GITSG: What makes FirstCOUNSEL unique?Linda: Along with our platform, we offer underutilized but qualified lawyers (our FirstCounsellors) an opportunity to work flexible schedules in a non-traditional career path.
Being able to connect and help both sides of the startup economy makes my job really rewarding.

GITSG: This is very exciting! What’s next for FirstCOUNSEL?Linda: Currently we are serving the Singapore market, but we do plan to expand to other markets where it makes sense.

FirstCOUNSEL’s legal dashboard is easily accessible – a few clicks give you instant access to a catalogue of legal resources across the spectrum of startup needs – from employee agreements and term sheets, to all your legal documentation on the cloud. Pay only for what you need, and purchase add-ons as your requirements increase – with email, phone and chat support included.

Our thanks to Linda for sharing her story – look out for the FirstCOUNSEL team at your next startup community event and say hi!

Huifen is a technology lawyer who has worked in financial services, telecommunications and R&D. She is deeply interested in the intersection of law and technology, and wrote her masters’ thesis on the topic of the data privacy and the Internet of Things (IOT). She is currently the Asia-Pacific counsel for the online payments business of a global FSI company.

On 7th November 2017, Girls in Tech Singapore hosted a Chatbot 101 workshop with over 50 participants from the community. Sherly (GoJek) and Ruoxu (Zendesk) shared what it’s like to be a Data Scientist and held a hands-on session with participants to build a simple, functional chatbot.

Guests arrived at the LEVEL3 cafeteria for a light dinner before the event. Everyone was excited to get started, understand the hype around Artificial Intelligence (AI), and build a chatbot – even without any prior programming knowledge.

Girls in Tech Singapore’s Managing Director Wan Ting Poh kicked off the session and shared the organisation’s goal in organising such workshops: to Empower Women with Technical Skillsets. Ruoxu and Sherly, our trainers for the day, gave us a sneak peek into data science, its history and modern methods. We learned about natural learning processing (NLP) – which lets computers understand human languages), the different kinds of chat bots and watched a classic video of an early war between chatbots Alice and Eliza.

It was truly intriguing to see how chatbots have evolved from basic capabilities to the advanced features we know today. Ruoxu also shared that one of the challenges in building a smart, generative chatbot is preventing abusive language and infinite loops.

The most exciting and anticipated part of the workshop came next: we turned on our laptops for the hands-on session to build our very own chatbots on Facebook Messenger. To start, we had to create and name the agent, configuring them on Facebook Developers App. It turns out, we can even teach our chatbot agents to make small talk with no fuss!

The evening ended with a Q&A session for our trainers, reflecting on newfound knowledge with the subject and amusing conversations with our individual chatbots.

Special thanks to Accenture and LEVEL3 for sponsoring the event!

Teresa is an operations and marketing professional who specializes in advertising and tech. Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Ahead of Day 2 of our Design Thinking Workshop where participants bring back their working prototype to showcase to the judges, user experience expert Vasu Kolla shares what cognitive diversity is, and how some practices can help improve our thinking for better insights and solutions in our personal and professional life.

Organisations big and small are under pressure to be innovative in order to survive and succeed. Most organisations accept that employers benefit from a diverse workforce. New research proves that diversity unlocks innovation and drives market growth.

There is a lot of attention given to diversity and inclusion at the workplace. In most cases, the conversations are around inherent diversity. This includes traits people are born with, such as gender, race, religion, and ethnicity. However, there is no strong correlation between inherent diversity and improved innovation. There might be societal and political reasons to aim for inherent diversity, but recent research has shown that what actually correlates with better performance is higher cognitive diversity.

Cognitive diversity has been defined as differences in perspectives or information processing styles. The focus is on how individuals think about and engage with new, uncertain, and complex situations. – Harvard Business Review

From the research so far the ‘cognition’ in ‘cognitive diversity’ refers to variation in team members backgrounds and experience, their knowledge, skills and abilities, their attitudes, perspectives and beliefs, or a combination of these characteristics.

How can we improve our ‘cognition’ in ‘cognitive diversity’?

Given that cognitive diversity is the key to innovation, how can we improve our own cognition? It starts with changing the way we think.

A new type of thinking is essential if the mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels. – Albert Einstein

It is possible to cultivate a way of thinking and being that encourages breakthrough insights more often. The difficulty is that we often cannot separate beliefs that are formed through experiences from reality. Reality is something that is out there and concrete, whether you believe it or not.

So what can we do to break our own beliefs to see things in a new perspective? In the book Liminal Thinking, Dave Gray recommends nine practices to improve our thinking:

1. Assume that you are not objective

It is easy for us to see problems in others, but challenging to see problems in ourselves. If we are unwilling to acknowledge our own contributions to a problem, we will never see a situation clearly. The Johari window is a technique that helps people better understand the relationships between themselves and others, and is a great way to start.

2. Empty your cup

You cannot learn new things without letting go of old things. You can only do so by suspending judgement. In Zen practice, this is called the ‘Beginner’s mind’. Take on an attitude of openness, curiosity, and eagerness to learn. Have an open mind, and allow yourself to feel “dumb” and vulnerable.

3. Create a safe space

Throughout our life, we learn to avoid making mistakes and looking stupid. We also develop emotional defenses to protect our views of ourselves—to protect our ego. Protecting our ego and fear are two major inhibitors of innovation.

David Rock of the Neuro Leadership Institute has developed a brain science-based model for thinking about emotional needs to create a safe space for innovation, called the SCARF model. It states that when your basic emotional needs are met, you do better work. When you feel valued and important, you perform at much higher levels. When you have a sense of control, you take initiative. When you feel a sense of belonging, you contribute more. And when you feel you are treated fairly, you will go the extra mile.

4. Triangulate and validate

Look at situations from as many points of view as possible. Consider the possibility that seemingly different or contradictory beliefs may in fact be valid. If something does not make sense to you, then you are missing something. Try to cultivate as many theories as you can — including some that may seem odd or counter-intuitive — and hold on to them loosely. By doing so, you can start to ask questions and seek valid information to understand what is really going on.

5. Ask questions, make connections

Asking questions allows you to find in-between spaces that you may not have seen or considered. Use these spaces to find intersections between needs and solutions, and form new connections. Many new opportunities are already latent in the system, waiting to be discovered.

6. Disrupt routines

Many beliefs are embedded in habitual routines that run on autopilot. If a routine is a problem, disrupt that routine for new possibilities. Whenever you are stuck in any kind of recurring pattern, try something random. Anything you can do to throw the train off the rails will create new openings and help you to see a situation in a new way.

7. Act in the here and now

You can test beliefs even if you believe they are untrue. All you need to do is act as if they were true, and see what happens. If you find something that works, do more of it. Change is only possible in the here and now, and the way to create change is by acting in the here and now — as if that new world already exists.

8. Make sense with stories

People tend to make sense of facts through their own belief systems. The best way to promote a new or different belief is not through facts, but stories. Stories are the best way for you to share an experience so others can learn from it.

9. Evolve yourself

If you can be open about how change affects you personally, you have a better chance of achieving your aims. To change the world, you must be willing to change yourself.

Be the change you want to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

Focusing on inherent diversity because it is easy to measure will not make us innovative. We need to embrace cognitive diversity to solve complex problems, so that true innovation and disruption can happen.

Vasu Kolla is a user experience designer at Pebble Road, where he leads strategy and design of digital products. His work focuses on the design of websites and apps – specialising in digital strategy, design research, interaction design and usability testing.

A former instructor at General Assembly, Vasu also contributes to the local design community through IxDA Singapore and teaching at various institutes. He has a Master’s in Information Systems from NTU and recently spoke at Slush Singapore on the ethics of UX.